The asymptotically optimal meshsize function for bi-p degree interpolation over rectangular elements (Q1298495)

The authors present a method for constructing asymptotically optimal mesh subdivisions in a class of meshes with rectangular elements. The method is based on an error estimate phrased in terms of horizontal and vertical mesh sizes. In the current paper, this error estimate is based on derivatives of the known function being interpolated but in the case of solution of partial differential equations would be constructed from a coarse mesh approximate solution. This latter case will be the topic of a future paper. The authors present a mesh refinement and coarsening algorithm based on the error estimate. This algorithm is shown to produce asymptotically optimal rectangular meshes in the sense that the errors on the individual mesh elements are approximately equidistributed. The idea of the algorithm is to divide rectangles in two when the estimated error is too large and to combine two rectangles into a single rectangle when the estimated error is too small. A corner of a refined rectangle can lie at the center of an edge of an adjacent rectangle. The authors also consider the case that the mesh elements are square. Four numerical examples are presented. The functions to be interpolated are typical of solutions to partial differential equations. Since the functions are known, it is possible to examine the behavior of the mesh generation algorithm in detail. Indeed, twenty-four figures illustrate in practice the algorithm's theoretical performance.